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Digitization #UnderNet, icebreakers #THRONE/6G #'Never blame malice on what can adequately be blamed on stupidity" -- R. Feynman #"The vectors are all wrong!" ##Medbay guy? ##Vector diffusion in labs! ##"everyone's been workong 24/7 to isolate the gray death vectors" #JACOB'S SHADOW -- Andrew Hammond #Mecanocarbons? Bucky tubes? (real concepts?) #Immunoglobin encodings -- gray death -- successful integration? #RosyCross // Oracle #Palus-Somni, Mare-Crisium Lunar Regions #"We are close to achieving this goal. Some would say that human liberty has been compromised, but the reality is just the opposite. As surveillance expands, people become free from danger, free to walk the streets at night, free to work in a safe place, and free to buy any legal product or service without the thread of fraus. One day every man and woman will quietly earn money, purchase items for quiet homes on quiet streets, have cook-outs with neighbors and strangers alike, and sleep with doors and windows wide open. If that isn't the tranquil dream of every free civilization throughout history, WHAT IS? Analysis #These terms originate from Smuggler's The Modern Terrorist's Handbook, likely a nod to modern anarchist literature such as The Anarchist Cookbook'. The UnderNet likely references the "deep internet" of today -- technically its darker side due to its multiple definitions and meanings. "Icebreakers" is a set of hacking tools employed by JC to crack open the many terminals and workstations he comes to in the game. As of this writing, I am unsure what the ICE acronym stands for -- there are a few possible definitions for it. The viruses mentioned at the end of the excerpt are literary references. #Another reference to clearance levels well beyond my own -- THRONE/6G is the second-highest level seen in the game. #Notable quote from physicist Richard Feynman, who had a hand in the Manhattan Project and the Challenger disaster investigation. #The vectors mentioned here come up in a number of places throughout the earlier half of the game. The Gray Death, which I suspect to be a virulent delivery method of nanoaugmentation, is of concern to many biologist NPC's, such as Ford Schick and the senile bum in the Hell's Kitchen Clinic med bay. Vector is a very vague term in biology, which could mean a transmission method from host to carrier to victim (or vice-versa), or on a molecular level, the transmission of foreign genetics to another cell. Both are relevant; doctors had no idea how the virus was being transmitted, and molecular biologists had no idea (or were "all wrong") how the cellular transmission worked. As an artificial construct, it would naturally be unlike anything ever seen before. #''Jacob's Shadow'', the other of the two literary works present in the game, is definitely written specifically for Deus Ex. While it does a fantastic job of providing more to think on than just how to prod the next guard, the writing style is clearly that of the creative team and not an actual author. #Mecanocarbons are an artificial construct for DX -- clearly the nanoaugs on a molecular level. This parody on Anything for Dummies (entitled Nanotechnology for Stupid People) seeks to educate the reader on popular technological terms such as "Universal Contructor" (interesting, considering its extreme secrecy), "gray goo" (end of the world nanotechn scenario -- what is essentially happening in DX -- also odd considering the secrecy and unknowns about the Gray Death), "mecanocarbons", and "bucky tubes." Bucky tubes are applications of bucky balls into carbon filaments or nanotubes that are immensely strong -- far moreso than steel. #Immunoglobins are antibodies, putting it shortly. The Dentons are missing their H-type epsilons, which allow for their augmentation and their immunity against the Gray Death. H-types are fictional and beyond our current knowledge, which extends to types A, D, E, G, M, and Y. #The Oracle is an internet knowledgebase and humor collaborative originally known as the UseNet Oracle. UseNet may have migrated into the UnderNet -- its current activities have been rather shady, though I am unsure of its standing during DX's development cycle. Regardless, a user of the Oracle would send a question to an anonymous second party, who would attach an answer and a question that the first user would ask of a third party, thus continuin the chain. Perhaps the Oracle has turned into a search engine or maybe it is still the same after so many decades -- it is impossible to be sure. Of interest is the domain RosyCross, which is a Christian symbol largely associated with the Roicrucian Order, a collection of Christian mystics. #This article by the Associated Press (or maybe a rebranded NPR to American Public Radio) provides some interesting insight to what might have been with Deus Ex. A trip to the moon was planned for the game at some point, if memory serves, but was cut due to constraints. References to these levels remain scattered throughout the game, and this is one of them. Apparently, many nations are racing to colonize the moon; China is making a controversial decision to move forward with their plans and the United States, with a newly-empowered Nigeria (of all nations) disputing China's territorial claims. Mass drivers are delivering supplies to the moon, and it is safe to assume they are launching men and supplies into space as well. #This propaganda piece on a public terminal in the UNATCO break room, written by Agent Anna Navarre is quite interesting, with the entire piece making mentions of a nationwide datamining and surveillance system far beyond (or maybe not so much) the PATRIOT Act of today. Named ECHELON (or the Aquinas Protocol; I will strive to clarify the difference with coming analyses), this program tracks every citizen in the United States -- and around the globe in a terrifying 1984 scenario. Page 3 Category:Project Pages Category:Key Pages